Last night, concerned parents were invited to gather and watch the video about puberty that our fifth graders will be shown in school soon. I went, but not as a concerned parent, rather as a disturbed human being (aka a writer) who loves a good laugh. And what better way to get that laugh than sitting in a room full of uptight parents listening to a middle-aged teacher wearing a floral dress and cardigan say the word “ejaculate” over and over.
I sat in the second row so that I could take some inconspicuous pics of whatever hilarious slides/videos might be shown, but I was nervous that everyone would see me and think WHO IS THIS CREEPER?? But clearly not worried enough to NOT do it. Duh.
So the ejaculate lady put up some slides with the exact text the teachers read to the kids about puberty. Parents started taking pictures with their phones and I was all this is perfect now I can take photos without being a red flag. And then the photo below came up. I just don’t understand how this is the “scientific” drawing that we’ve deemed good enough. My son’s best friend is drawing mind-blowing full-color comics on a computer program and this is what the adults in charge have come up with to educate our kids about their bodies? “Hey kids, your bladder looks like a Wavy Lays potato chip because we had no other possible way of representing it to you graphically despite the fact that you have all made far better infographics for your science fair projects.”
Okay so this slide comes up and I’m appalled (and my inner adolescent giggles), and I desperately want to take a picture of it to share with you all. But no one else was taking pics of it. Probably because it’s a dick. A badly drawn one. But I NEEDED a dick pic. “Don’t do it, Brandy. Everyone’s gonna see you and think you’re a sicko. No one else is taking a pic of this one. Just let this one go, Brandy.” But I could not. So up my phone went, like a lone periscope above the sea, the entire room behind me, watching me zoom, click and then retreat.
I just want you all to acknowledge for a moment how dedicated I am to harvesting funny shit for you.
So then, the ejaculate lady tells us her favorite question from a kid that she’s been asked in all her 21 years of saying ejaculate to kids. She told us this was a question from a girl in a sixth-grade class, where they go more depth and talk about sex. “The girl asked me: if you want to have twins, do you do it, and then do it again right after?” The ejaculate lady laughed hard at telling us that. What a little dickens, that girl.
Meanwhile, I’m in a mental vortex remembering when I learned about sex in seventh grade, and asked my own teacher a question about it. It was a little different than the charming girl asking how to get twins.
About two weeks before Mr. Nicholls put the coffee can on his desk and told us we could put anonymous sex questions in there and he would answer them to the class, my friend told me she found a porno movie in her older brother’s room. We watched it and I couldn’t believe what I was seeing. I didn’t know any of that was possible and I didn’t know how it was happening and why any of them were choosing to do any of it. I HAD QUESTIONS.
Cut to Mr. Nicholls picking my notecard out of the can and reading it first to himself. I knew it was my notecard because no one else had the balls (impaired judgment) to ask anything of this odd man who didn’t own a TV, but rented one every four years for the Olympics. Mr. Nicholls’s face contorted as he held the card up. He seemed unsure, like he didn’t understand what I was asking. I needed my question answered and so I shattered the idea of anonymity (which apparently has never mattered to me) and bursted out with, “What I’m asking is when women put the guy’s penis in their mouth and it makes that stuff, where does it go? Does she swallow that stuff and if so, does it hurt her?”
The class was SILENT after that. Mr. Nicholls looked like he was in physical pain as we all waited for his wisdom to emerge. I remember his hands raising up and touching his brow in a way that can best be described as “visible discomfort.” He must’ve been taking a real hard look at the life choices that had brought he and I to this very moment.
He spoke.
“I’m not answering that, Brandy.”
So last night, as the uptight parents badgered the ejaculate woman about what the school was going to teach our precious babies and how would the teachers handle it if someone asked about sex (gasp), she tried to calm them, “We simply tell them to ask their parents about anything other than the content we covered with them.” Then she added, with a warm teacher smile, “And just so you know, they don’t ever ask anything that’s inappropriate. It’s pretty mild stuff they’re learning here.” She may have even winked.
And in that moment, I wished Mr. Nicholls were here to slap the taste out of the ejaculate lady’s lying mouth with a flying Jiu Jitsu move that he learned from watching the 1988 Olympics.
I AM A TERRIBLE PERSON.
(You’re welcome.)